Shakespeare's Sonnets, Retold

Shakespeare's Sonnets, Retold

Shakespeare’s Sonnets are unimprovable. But, to many, they remain frustratingly unintelligible. And thus, sadly, the greatest collection of love poems ever written are seldom read.

To clarify their meaning and enhance the enjoyment for a broad modern audience, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Retold is a contemporary re-write of all 154 sonnets, interpreted line-for-line, and written in the traditional iambic pentameter and rhyming pattern of the Bard's eternal verses.

The rich scope of the sonnets is brought to life for today’s audience in an easily understood poetic translation. The passion, heartbreak, deception, lewd acts, reconciliation and mortality of Shakespeare’s originals can now be understood by all, without the need to cross reference to an enjoyment-sapping study-guide. By revealing the machinations of his heart, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Retold helps the reader understand much of who William Shakespeare really was.

Shakespeare's Sonnets, Retold was published globally in November 2018 by two separate divisions of Penguin Random House.

A short introduction to Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Retold

Sonnet 18

Original

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimmed,And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed: But thy eternal summer shall not fade,Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st. So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Retold

Shall I compare you to a summer’s day?You’re more delightful, always shining strong; High winds blow hard on flowering buds in May, And summer never seems to last that long;Some days the sun is just too hot to bearWhilst other days it’s stuck behind a cloud,For even gorgeous weather fades to fairBy chance, as Mother Nature is allowed.But you, unlike the summer, will not fade,Nor lose the love your face and soul defines;Not even death will make your life degrade Because your memory’s captured in these lines. So long as people breathe or eyes review, These words live on, reminding them of you.

Audiobook

Paapa Essiedu is a British actor, winner of the 2016 Ian Charleson Award for his title role in the Royal Shakespeare Company's Hamlet. He reads all originals in Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Retold.

Stephen Fry is a writer, actor, comedian, presenter and activist. He reads all James Anthony’s retellings in Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Retold.

UK & Commonwealth Edition

The UK and Commonwealth edition will be published by the WH Allen imprint of Ebury Publishing, one of the UK’s most celebrated non-fiction lists with bestsellers in almost every genre. Their eclectic authors include Richard Branson, Deepak Chopra, Patrick Barkley and the Dalai Lama.

North American edition

The North American edition will be published by the Three Rivers Press imprint of Crown Publishing Group, a leading publisher of both fiction and non-fiction, whose celebrated authors include Erik Larson, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Martha Stewart and Gillian Flynn.